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For years advocates for the rights of the mentally ill and disabled have been campaigning for Czech hospitals and other institutions to prohibit the use of so-called "caged beds" to restrain patients. This week, the author of the Harry Potter children's books, J.K. Rowling, very publicly lent her voice to the campaign; on Tuesday, the Czech Health Minister ordered psychiatric institutions to immediately stop using the caged beds. Brian Kenety spoke with the director of Prague's Centre for Mental Health Care Development, psychiatrist Dr Jan Pfeiffer,

The leaders of the three parties trying to put together a new government after Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's resignation last month, met once again on Tuesday, and the outlines of a new government came a step closer. But Mr Spidla's successor at the helm of the Social Democrats, Stanislav Gross, is having to tread a very delicate path, not only with his coalition partners, but also among dissenters within his own party. David Vaughan has been following developments.

This summer Prague is hosting its 8th Shakespeare Festival. It was initially the idea of the former Czech president Vaclav Havel, who is, of course, no stranger to the theatre himself. This year we can see open-air productions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet at the Prague, Brno and Bratislava castles. There will also be an English-language puppet production of Hamlet. Laura Teodorescu went to see one of the productions:

The Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic was in the Czech Republic on Monday for his first official foreign trip since his election in April. Mr Gasparovic started by meeting his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus, continuing a tradition of each country's president making his first official visit to the other, established after the so-called "velvet divorce", when Czechoslovakia peacefully split in 1993.

Anyone who travels around the rolling countryside of Central Bohemia these days will be greeted by a sorry sight: hundreds of brown patches marring the perfect greenery of the mixed forests of that hilly region. Thousands of fir trees are dying in Bohemia but what exactly is causing them to wither and how serious is the situation? Pavla Horakova reports.

While in some European countries, like the Netherlands, the bicycle is a standard means of transport, in most of Czech cities you don't often see people cycling. However, the Czech government has now prepared a Strategy for Bicycle Transportation, which aims to change the situation.

The Czech mental health services have once again come under fire as some mental hospitals still use caged beds to help staff keep patients under control. Last month, Britain's Sunday Times featured an extensive article criticising such practices that are still used in post-Communist Central Europe. And a few days ago the BBC aired a shocking programme telling the story of a former psychiatric patient, forced to undergo treatment in a caged bed in a hospital in the Moravian city Brno. But only now has the controversial issue of caged-beds hit the

A seminar was held this week in Prague's Centre for Preventive Cardiology, on the effects of tobacco smoking, organised by the Czech Coalition against Tobacco. Delegates at the conference came out with some alarming statistics. For example, 50 people die per day in the Czech Republic from the effects of smoking. A regular smoker shortens his life by 15 years and about a third of the population of the Czech Republic still smokes. I asked Dr Michal Vrablik what are the greatest dangers:

After a few hot summers in the Czech Republic, most people are wondering if we will see a sustained period of hot weather at all this year. But one section of the population - houbari, or mushroom pickers - are hoping for more mild, wet weather, and a much better crop than last year.

The Czech Republic could be close to having a new government - one that looks very much like its predecessor. Outgoing Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's successor at the helm of the Social Democrats, the youthful Stanislav Gross, seems to have managed to cobble together a tiny majority of support in parliament - for a coalition of the same three partners as in the old team. Mr Gross is now working on the details, and seems confident that his new team will hold out till the next elections in two years' time. David Vaughan has been following the